Turkey’s Zeynep Sonmez rushed to assist a ball girl who fainted through the qualifier’s shock first-round victory over Ekaterina Alexandrova at the Australian Open.
As Alexandrova was serving for the second set to stage the tie, the ball girl – stood beside the umpire’s chair – fell flat on her again earlier than shortly getting again up.
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Sonmez sprinted over to her and helped her stroll over to the aspect of the court docket, the place she obtained medical consideration within the shade.
The ball girl managed to get again to her ft and was helped off court docket by medical employees, with play resuming after a six-minute delay.
Russian eleventh seed Alexandrova went on to win the set, however world quantity 112 Sonmez fought again from 3-0 down within the decider to finish a 7-5 4-6 6-4 upset on her fourth match level.
It is the most important win of the 23-year-old’s profession and strikes her into the second spherical at Melbourne Park for the primary time.
Temperatures reached highs of 28C on Sunday at Melbourne Park as the primary main of the yr received underneath approach, whereas the mercury is forecast to achieve 35C by Saturday, 24 January.
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The Australian Open up to date its excessive warmth coverage (EHP) in 2019 after conducting analysis into the consequences of warmth stress on tennis gamers.
This analysis led to the event of the heat stress scale (HSS), which is used to resolve when the circumstances get too difficult, and when gamers’ well being may very well be at danger.